Former free school’s posthumous league table triumph re-ignites community’s anger

Last week’s publication of Sats league table results for schools across England provoked an excruciatingly bitter-sweet moment for those connected to an institution which featured heavily on this website up until its closure in the summer.

St Anthony’s free school, in Cinderford, Gloucestershire, had a chaotic history but was closed after, we were told, being in the middle of an effective turnaround under its headteacher, Lorna Middleton, who had taken over only at the start of the 2017-18 academic year.

In May, the school’s chair of governors, Anselm Jacobs, told the government that it should have closed St Anthony’s in the past, but should not be going ahead with plans to do so at that time, having just spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on improvement works.

We reported at the time a parent with three children at the school saying Middleton had done “amazing” work since arriving in September 2017.

These points appear to have been vindicated spectacularly– for those who put weight on the evidence of test results – after St Anthony’s finished a staggering second out of Gloucestershire’s 293 primary schools for its results for children’s reading progress.